1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved data processing system and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for multicomputer data transfers. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for secure computer-to-computer communication.
2. Description of the Related Art
Consumers have become accustomed to buying and using many independent electronic devices with each device having a specialized purpose. In general, the construction of each class of device is tailored to the technical requirements for accomplishing the intended purpose of the device and various economic considerations and tradeoffs with respect to its construction and its intended use. Hence, there has been little progress in the past towards consolidating many electronic devices into a single device with the computational facilities that would be required for many different purposes. Moreover, there has been little need to accomplish this type of consolidation.
For example, in the past, the quality of the video display that has been available for presenting output from different classes of devices has varied greatly. For obvious historical reasons, game consoles typically attach to standard television sets because most households did own a television set but did not own a computer monitor, so the household television set provided the only available display device to which the game console could be attached. The household television set has been an adequate display device for many years because the graphics generated by the game console would not have appeared any better on a display device with higher resolution. Meanwhile, personal computers and workstations have had monitors with much higher resolution and image quality because their uses required better monitors and their economic considerations justified better monitors.
While display devices can be used for purposes for which the device was not originally unintended, the results are generally poor. For example, web browsing is an inferior experience when Web pages are displayed on a standard television screen rather than on a computer monitor, even compared to a small computer monitor. The inferior viewing quality accounts for much of the lack of success of WebTV® and other similar offerings. Hence, in general, not only has there has been little ability to interface consumer electronic devices that were not originally constructed for doing so, but most consumer electronic devices also lacked the functionality that might be useful for doing so.
However, technology has advanced to the point at which particular computational requirements for mass-market consumer entertainment devices far exceed the requirements of personal computers, and in some cases, even exceed the computational facilities available from professional workstations. For example, specialized graphic processing requirements for game consoles now exceed those required or even provided by personal computers. As semiconductor technology reaches a state at which consumer electronic devices can be economically provided with many desired characteristics, many consumer electronic devices will contain functionality with a quality that is comparable to similar functionality in other devices. For example, in the near future, the quality differences between different classes of display device will disappear and actually reverse with the advent of high-definition television (HDTV) receivers, which have greater resolution and image quality than computer monitors, including the majority of graphic workstation displays.
In addition, game consoles will contain graphic processing capabilities that exceed those of personal computers. Hence, there will be increasing consumer demand for using game-console-like devices and HDTV receivers in combination for some of the purposes that are now delegated to personal computers. Although some consumers may have significant investments in legacy software such that they would not want to replace both computer hardware and computer software just to obtain the advantages of a game-console-like device and an HDTV-quality display, the performance capabilities of game-console-like devices will permit software emulation of various computer processors, and the emulation will be more than sufficient to run common business applications.
Although HDTV receivers are relatively new and expensive, game-console-like devices and HDTV systems will both realize significant cost advantages from manufacturing economies of scale when they are more widely deployed. The sales volume of workstation and personal computer systems are dwarfed by those associated with televisions and game consoles, so considerably lower hardware manufacturing costs are expected to result. More importantly, because game-console-like devices will be able to be manufactured relatively inexpensive, they can be marketed in a manner similar to the sales model for razors in which the sales of disposable razor blades are much larger than the sales of relatively durable razors. In the case of game-console-like devices, there may be little profit or possibly a small loss in selling the console device, but profits can be generated from subsequent high margin sales of games, content, or other software. In contrast, the manufacturers of workstations or personal computer systems must make a profit only from the sale of hardware systems and peripherals.
Given all of the above considerations, it is considered extremely likely by many industry experts that an advanced game-console-like device, together with a high quality display device and a broadband network connection, will eventually displace many electronic devices, such as the personal computer and the video cassette recorder, including more recent electronic devices, such as the set-top box and the digital video recorder. In addition to providing extremely realistic and detailed individual and multi-player video games, an advanced game-console-like device will provide a variety of traditional computer applications, such as Web browsing, e-mail, or word processing, as well as more advanced applications, such as downloading and playing movies and audio content, e-commerce, Internet-based telephony, distance education, and other applications.
In addition to these emerging technological developments, another significant emerging development is the proliferation of the “pay-per-use” business model; a user of a client system downloads application code and audiovisual content as needed and pays for specific limited uses. This business model allows software application providers to ensure that the latest version of code is always employed, thereby reducing interoperability problems and improving the quality of service since all problems can be fixed at the source of the code. Additionally, a more predictable revenue stream also results in conjunction with reduced costs for individuals. For example, with a complex business software application suite, individual users will be able to purchase some of the suite's capabilities, which contrasts with the current practice of purchasing the entire suite but only using a small fraction of it. A similar argument applies to digital music content for which a consumer might wish to pay to download only a few songs from an artist rather than purchasing an entire collection of songs.
In combination, these considerations point to a consumer electronic device market with widespread deployment of large numbers of computationally high-performance entertainment devices using HDTV systems for graphic display. These consumer systems will be connected to content servers via broadband links in a client/server configuration. The user interface may use wireless input devices, such as a wireless keyboard, mouse and/or joystick, in addition to cordless telephone handsets and remote controls, although conventional computer peripherals might also be attached. Most importantly, though, it is expected that most if not all application code and content will be purchased and downloaded on demand using a pay-per-use or subscription-based business model.
Given this type of computational environment, there is an important need to maintain control over downloaded application code and content and to ensure security of the communications between client devices and servers. Given the considerable value of such content, it is necessary to ensure that a particular client system can be authenticated and then authorized to receive any requested content while being properly charged for its use. The security of e-commerce, other financial transactions, and general communications between a client and a server must also be ensured.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a system and a methodology for preventing the circumvention of content control mechanisms while also verifying the authenticity of downloaded code in a manner that ensures that the code does not include viruses or other malicious code. It would be particularly advantageous to ensure that the client may not use downloaded content in an inappropriate fashion that diverts revenue from the service provider, such as illegitimate copying of executable application code or audiovisual content in a playable form.